I am an experienced freelance technology journalist. I write for Wired, The Next Web, TrustedReviews and the BBC in addition to Forbes.

I began in b2b print journalism covering tech companies at the height of the dot com boom and switched to covering consumer technology as the iPod began to take off.

A career highlight for me was being a founding member of TrustedReviews. It started in 2003 and we were repeatedly told websites could not compete with print! Within four years we were purchased by IPC Media (Time Warner's publishing division) to become its flagship tech title.

What fascinates me are the machinations of technology's biggest companies. Got a pitch, tip or leak? Contact me on Twitter , Google+, my professional Facebook page or via email: gordonATgordonkelly.com. I don't bite.

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I have both a Samsung Note 10 tablet, and a Note 2 phone. They are really nifty products and glad to have them. Samsung also has their own Android apps that you can download, but don’t think that this has been too successful. The main advantage of Android is that every time you turn your Android device on, it goes to the Google Play store and all updates and notifications are downloaded along with any e-mail app you have tied to the device. Within 2 minutes, my Android devices are ready to go freshly updated. I’m sure that Samsung has looked at the cost of providing and maintaining their own Tizen Store that would do something similar. For most people that might not be a problem as long as the Samsung store was as user friendly as the Google Play Store. I’m sure by releasing a Tizen phone they are finding out how friendly the store will be to those customers. How long will it take them to get 1,000,000 apps? They may finally just decide to use Tizen in their Asian market and stick with Android in the USA market. If their USA phones mention that they have a Tizen O/S, their competitors may gain ground by integrating more closely with Android. Decisions? Decisions? Decisions?

The problem with Samsung is that their software is awful. They built all these apps competing with equivalent Google versions and without fail every single one of them is inferior. People don’t buy Samsung phones for TouchWiz. They buy it in spite of it. Having said that, the vast majority of folks probably have no clue that the underlying OS is Android. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t know when the apps they use suddenly no longer work on the similar looking Tizen phone. At that point I think the vast majority of them will go running to an Android Samsung phone – or they may well discover that Moto X/G/E provide better experience and cheaper. I think Tizen is too late. And is competing with Firefox OS, Sailfish etc for the HTML5 app market (and it may well do well here) and some really solid Android phones at the upper and lower ends of the Android market. And I think they are going to get their answer this year with what I expect to be dismal performance of their Tizen smart watch compared to the Androidwear smart watches.

I think it is a very real possibility. Certainly I’m not predicting Tizen will be a big success, merely examining why Samsung is prepared to take such a big risk. Win or lose I think it has positive effects for the market. Win and we have a powerful new player shaking things up, lose and Samsung comes down a lot of notches and creates a more even field for other Android device manufacturers.

A Samsung Yahoo merger/partnership might make a lot of sense for both companies. Yahoo wants to be a big player in the mobile marketplace, and Samsung wants to be free of Google. Yahoo has the services and properties that could be developed into a robust ecosystem if properly managed.

Hey Gordon Kelly, GET A NEW CATCH PHRASE! This is Not a BEAST! It’s a Mid-Tier handset using Sammy’s Tizen Operating System. In order for it to be a BEAST as you have termed it then it would have as good or better spec’s than the Galaxy S5. This Fails miserably in that context. It has a 720p screen, 8mp camera, Small Battery, only 2gb memory. In order to call it a “Beast” it should have a 2K screen or at least the same 1080p screen the S5 has, 3gb memory, a better battery and at least a 13mp+ camera. Again, Stop Terming everything as a BEAST when at best it’s Mid-Tier with a few of the same minor components as the S5.

Here’s the Link where you used the same Phrase Yesterday in Describing the Phone. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/06/02/samsung-launches-first-tizen-phone-and-it-is-a-beast/#comment-1857

Like I said I did read it before as you’ve called it that twice now in two days. Again I realize you’ve stated that Sammy have shown faith in Tizen by releasing a phones with these spec’s. Though if they are all in and deteremined to move away from Android they would have met or bettered their Galaxy 5 Line of phones to showcase all their work! As it is these specs are only on par with some of Sammy’s Galaxy 3 & 4 lines. It matches 3′s Screen & Camera, and is just mildly faster than the S4 and even that had 802.11ac which this Tizen model does not. If Sammy really wanted to showcase this phone then they would have given it some REAL Spec’s! That is all I’m pointing out here!

I would be very happy if samsung implements Tizen in their mobile phones and succeed. Building and bringing something new very fast into the market has been an awesome trait of samsung. People are highly bored of current apps and the operating systems. Upon that, Supporting a common OS in all the devices will be a great acheivement. Considering samsung, they are into wearable device, where tizen is moderately success, mobiles in which people are bored of android or iOS and looking for something new, TVs and in-vehicle infotainment in which a new OS wouldn’t make a big difference. But a common platform in TVs and in-vehicle infotainment will bring-in ease of use for customers. Tizen doesn’t need 1,000,000 apps during its initial days of release. If it supports the major apps and helps its developers in building new apps, it would be a great success. Creativity is freakingly low in the current mobile apps. An new OS will have a high probability for creativity. Overall, I think bringing Tizen into market will reduce their dependency on Android and will help Samsung in competing with Google and Apple.

I have used (or currently use) every Galaxy S phone including the Note 3. If Samsung ditches Android and goes with a new operating system I will switch to an iPhone or other device. I’m not impressed with Samsung apps and am not convinced they will match the abilities of the Google Play or Apple store. This experiment will fail miserably.